Sven Co-op Map Reviews

      Galleon is a converted Counter-Strike map with enemies and some weapons scattered around. There are quite a few Counter-Strike map conversions but it is so nice to see one that's not meant for PVP. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: PhantomLord Conversion authors: kmkz Date of original mod release: 2001 Date of final Sven Map release: 2017 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Galleon (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | February 13, 2022 | 2947 characters      This map is a conversion of a Counter-Strike map. Unlike other conversions of CS maps this one actually has enemies and is modified for cooperative play. There are around 100 enemies in the map and players must hunt them all down.      The map is expansive with plenty to see. Some of the architecture looks bad, like the staircases. Some of the hallways are really narrow with lots of twists and turns. In a competitive map these features would add to the challenge but in Sven the map gets more annoying the more ti

       This is a zombie arena map based on Counter-Strike: Nexon. The arena fills with zombies until a big boss zombie shows up. Killing the boss ends the map. SCMapDB page Author: Nexon Date of final release: 2017 Maps in package: 1 Map review of HS-Desertstorm Zombie Scenario Map-1 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | February 5, 2022 | 2812 characters      HS Desertstorm Zombie Scenario Map 1 is a very simple map with little ambition and lots of style.      The map's big draw is its abundant use of high quality models from Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies. Not all of these work as of this review, as many of the world models are errors. The zombies themselves work, though, and I have to say: they're a ton of fun. It's a simple trick, but these zombies come in all sorts of neat varieties and it works great for me.      The weapons also have some neat models. There's a few scripted weapons that also function a bit new. For the most part, they're all just l

      This is a zombie arena map based on Counter-Strike: Nexon. The arena fills with zombies until a big boss zombie shows up. Killing the boss ends the map. SCMapDB page Author: Nexon Date of final release: 2017 Maps in package: 1 Map review of HS-Desertstorm Zombie Scenario Map-1 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | February 6, 2022 | 2181 characters      This map is made to play like the Counter-Strike: Nexon spin-off. It's got some fun new weapon models, a lot of which are left-handed for some reason, and enemies are used from Nexon.      The gameplay is pretty standard zombie horde defense. There are a lot of zombies, many different types, and players are holed up in a building. One thing I found interesting was that the wooden boards on the doors never got broken and successfully kept all the zombies out. In the first half of the map my teammate and I were running around shotgunning the various zombies in their assorted heads but by the second we stayed indoors a

       This map's name is a mouthful. It is essentially a monster hunt map. The arena uses the de_dust textures to create a new area highly reminiscent of de_dust. Four monsters with high health and interesting models from Counter-Strike: Nexon are scattered around for players to hunt. SCMapDB page Author: Patrick Date of final release: 2017 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Zombie Darkness-4 Dust Survive Map-1 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 28, 2022 | 4714 characters      Zombie Darkness 4 Dust Survival, or Z4_Dust for short, is a megamonster map wherein you play as trendy chicks using wacky guns to invest large quantities of lead in zombie flesh. The map is in the style of a dust map, though the layout is generally unfamiliar to me. The map takes place at night and the objective is to kill a megazombie called "Hide". There are three other zombies, though they are technically superfluous to the map's success.      Fighting the zombies in thi

      This map's name is a mouthful. It is essentially a monster hunt map. The arena uses the de_dust textures to create a new area highly reminiscent of de_dust. Four monsters with high health and interesting models from Counter-Strike: Nexon are scattered around for players to hunt. SCMapDB page Author: Patrick Date of final release: 2017 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Zombie Darkness-4 Dust Survive Map-1 (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 28, 2022 | 3378 characters      There are a lot of zombie maps on scmapdb. I wanted to play a zombie map and I chose this one for some reason. It wasn't as bad as I feared but it was way worse than I had hoped.      If you've ever played Mega Monster Massacre this map is almost exactly the same. It uses textures and inspiration from de_dust but it is not actually de_dust. It is an arena with wide corridors and some crates with just four enemies sprinkled around and each one has an astronomical amount of health.  

       Half-Life: C.A.G.E.D., or just Caged as I will refer to the map from here on, is a standalone Half-Life mod converted to Sven Co-op. It's a prison break themed mod with quite a few maps. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Cayle George Conversion authors: ak47toh Date of original mod release: 2017 Date of final Sven Map release: 2021 Maps in package: lots Map review of C.A.G.E.D. (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | January 15, 2022 | 4840 characters      C-A-G-E-D, or "Caged" for short, is a Half-Life mod experience that's quite fantastic. The single-player mod is available on Steam and, to be frank and up-front, this is a mod designed to be experienced as a singeplayer mod.      My review of C-A-G-E-D is:      It's a very beautiful mod with some fast-paced action, satisfying combat, tense platforming, and a general feeling that you are attempting to escape from a high-level prison complex. The thematic music, end-game setting, and final visua

      Half-Life: C.A.G.E.D., or just Caged as I will refer to the map from here on, is a standalone Half-Life mod converted to Sven Co-op. It's a prison break themed mod with quite a few maps. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Cayle George Conversion authors: ak47toh Date of original mod release: 2017 Date of final Sven Map release: 2021 Maps in package: lots Map review of C.A.G.E.D. (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by GrandmasterJ | January 15, 2022 | 3459 characters      Sometimes when a singleplayer Half-Life mod gets ported to Sven Co-op it doesn't really hold up, like Half-Quake. The second map, where actual gameplay starts, has it pretty rough, but overall I think this is one of the better ports and one of the better Sven Co-op maps out there. It definitely can be completed solo, a lot of the time whoever entered a room first would kill everybody inside before the other could do much to help. With any more than two players the combat becomes pretty trivial.      The map s

       Abandoned is an official map included in the Sven Co-op 4 and 5 releases. The map takes place in an abandoned section of Black Mesa during the events of Half-Life. SCMapDB page Author: Nih Date of final release: 2017 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Abandoned (originally posted on SCMapDB) by dunkelschwamm | January 1, 2021 | 4124 characters      Abandoned is a fairly decent action walkthrough map that's made for more players than I played with, and it shows. The map has a very loose and flowy progression which is somewhat refreshing at times, somewhat bumbling at others. The brutalist, industrial setting is convincing, but also stands to issue with many doors of differing importance often being lined up one after the other next to one another without much to distinguish them other than their position in the order.      Much of the map is made up of mostly well paced action sequences. It begins a bit rough at first for the arsenal given, but as the player's arsenal opens

      Abandoned is an official map included in the Sven Co-op 4 and 5 releases. The map takes place in an abandoned section of Black Mesa during the events of Half-Life. SCMapDB page Author: Nih Date of final release: 2017 Maps in package: 1 Map review of Abandoned (originally posted on SCMapDB) by GrandmasterJ | January 1, 2022 | 2330 characters      I haven't played many official Sven maps except for Toon Run, I had high hopes for this map. While the first half was going ok, the second half with the countdown really lost me.      The map is a scavenger hunt with shortcuts to the main spawn area opening up as you progress. This works really well for the most part, there are some areas that can get a little confusing but after shortcuts open up things get much easier to navigate.      Enemies come suddenly and in large numbers. This is definitely a map that needs quite a few players. The sudden barrages can and do overwhelm small groups of players. Luckily there are some great weap

       USS Darkstar is not a Star Trek themed map, let me get that out of the way now. It is an original setting with a massive space ship filled with a bunch of biological specimens that closely resembles a zoo. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Neil Manke Conversion authors: Lymphoid first and later Lossy Date of original mod release: 1999 Date of final Sven Map release: 2017 Maps in package: 18 Map review of USS Darkstar (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | December 29, 2021 | 4044 characters      USS Darkstar is a classic Half-Life mod made by Neil Manke and Black Widow Games, famous for the They Hunger horror conversion. Instead of pulpy horror cliches, USS Darkstar harps on sci-fi tropes, while forging a very unique identity of its own. At times it reminds me a bit of System Shock, at other times it reminds me a bit of Star Trek: TNG.      This conversion to Sven Co-op is brilliantly executed. Balancing is in proper check, everything works correctly (aside from occ

      USS Darkstar is not a Star Trek themed map, let me get that out of the way now. It is an original setting with a massive space ship filled with a bunch of biological specimens that closely resembles a zoo. SCMapDB page Original mod authors: Neil Manke Conversion authors: Lymphoid first and later Lossy Date of original mod release: 1999 Date of final Sven Map release: 2017 Maps in package: 18 Map review of USS Darkstar (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by GrandmasterJ | December 29, 2021 | 3259 characters      This map is one of the oldest maps on scmapdb that are not official releases. It's actually a conversion of a single player mod from way back when that I never played. It's got a lot of maps in the campaign but the first section is a lot of nice scenery, practically showing off the areas you will be fighting in later. I don't think you even see enemies or weapons until map 5 (out of around 16). The last map itself is just a cutscene and credits.      I loved the en

       This is a PVP map with a 4chan theme filled with memes. With how fast internet culture moves nowadays this map seems like something that would get old the moment it comes out. SCMapDB page Author: Keen Date of final release: 2017 Maps in package: 1 Map review of 4chan /pol/ Gasworks (PVP w/ NPCs) (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | December 4, 2021 | 1092 characters      We didn't play this on PVP, so we mostly just checked out what the map's layout was. As a DM map, it seems to have some good killzones, lots of flow between rooms, some big arenas with complicated pathways, but also some weird obvious places to camp and such. I can't say how well it works out though in practice, because we did not have PVP enabled.      The mapping itself ranges from decent brushwork and interesting atmospheres to stubby walls with repeating memes scrawled across them. Really, some of this is pretty nifty looking but most of it looks like whatever the geocities equival

      This is a PVP map with a 4chan theme filled with memes. With how fast internet culture moves nowadays this map seems like something that would get old the moment it comes out. SCMapDB page Author: Keen Date of final release: 2017 Maps in package: 1 Map review of 4chan /pol/ Gasworks (PVP w/ NPCs) (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by GrandmasterJ | December 4, 2021 | 1763 characters      So, this map is PVP and I didn't actually play PVP. But I did explore top to bottom with a friend.      This map did not age well. Putting aside how I haven't found 4chan funny or clever since I was 14 I just think most of what this map has to offer is boring and lame. I guess I missed my chance to experience this map when I would have identified with its humor the most. There is this secret door marked with that meme caricature of a Jew and it opens up to a room full of nooses and the egon gun, if you go inside the room hurts you. If you're into cringe edgy stuff then I guess thats cool

      Are you ready for Halloween in a Hospital? This map uses the typical scary map formula, respawning zombies, a maze, and players must go on a scavenger hunt to figure out how to progress. SCMapDB page Author: GreenTea MiaoMiaoLe Date of final release: 2017 Maps in package: 1 Map review of High Rise (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by dunkelschwamm | November 28, 2021 | 4417 characters      Halloween Hospital is a map that is like going to a really neat haunted house but you have to wade through thigh-high tar everywhere you go. Throughout there is some really fun brushwork and textures working together with minimal lighting to create a very spooky environment with variety, memorable locations, and thick atmosphere. The enemies, however, are where things unfortunately fall apart a bit.      First, a look at the progression of the map: The map begins with a goal of finding blue, lit squares and shooting them throughout the map. Doing so unlocks a later area. Now, when I was playing w

      Are you ready for Halloween in a Hospital? This map uses the typical scary map formula, respawning zombies, a maze, and players must go on a scavenger hunt to figure out how to progress. SCMapDB page Author: GreenTea MiaoMiaoLe Date of final release: 2017 Maps in package: 1 Map review of High Rise (originally posted on SCMapDB)  by GrandmasterJ | November 28, 2021 | 4835 characters      I don't have good experiences with halloween themed maps. Usually they are mazes filled with respawning enemies (typically Afraid of Monsters zombies) and I don't have a lot of fun playing them. This map is exactly all that but I actually managed to play to the end and beat it and didn't have a terrible time doing it.      The map is a big hospital with most of its doors locked. You can peek in through windows and see future areas, there is a lot of teasing of future areas which is nice because you know where to look when doors open and things unlock. Getting into the hospital was kind